


Alone

by MurderOfCrowss



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Antarctica, Armitage is a jackass who traps Rey out of revenge, But gives consent, Dubious Consent, F/M, Human egg/scifi, I'll let you decide if it was HEA or not., Kylo is an Alien, Kylo is good/but it's going to be weird, Madness, Psychological Horror, Rey thinks she's losing her mind, Rey's trapped and alone, Sensory Deprivation, Vaginal Sex, talk of pregnancy but no pregnancy, yep
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-18 01:48:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29601993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MurderOfCrowss/pseuds/MurderOfCrowss
Summary: Dr. Rey Niima is trapped in her research facility with no hope of rescue for the darkest coldest months in Antarctica. There's only one view out her window that never changes, and little to stimulate her mind. Madness is inevitable. Her ex-husband's, Armitage Hux's revenge for his belief she stole his research. When her mind begins to slip, she thinks at first the observation window is showing her a hallucination. What she sees outside can't be real, can it?Maybe she isn't as alone as she thinks she is.
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 16
Kudos: 57





	Alone

**Author's Note:**

> I did not write this. My bff "H" did for my birthday. She's able to capture my love for Stephen King horror mixed with everything I love about Star Wars. Thank you so much, you're my Christina or Meredith...depends on the day. You get me. You're my person.

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 06, 2038 

Personal Log 

Rey Niima, Researcher 

Halley VI Research Station, Antarctica 

_ I am so afraid. I have been abandoned here in this wasteland. I woke and I was alone. It was not an accident. I wasn’t left here by my colleagues or my employers at Alderaan Research Institute. I’m sure that they, as well as my parents and friends, have been told something plausible to explain the delay in my return. Armitage has always been thorough.  _

_ If anyone is reading this and I am dead or mad, this was not a mistake. It was deliberate. This was Armitage, my ex. I know that he arranged this. I believe that he changed the programming that automatically processed my arrival and departure from the research station. I believe that he arranged for me to be left here for the winter.  _

_ I have what I need to survive here in terms of my physical needs. But I am in very real danger. “Winter over syndrome” is a cluster of effects that arise from being trapped in this environment during the winter months. A lack of social variants, the monotony of the physical environment, the confinement, the inability to go outside, all affect sleep cycles and mood and can cause depression and apathy, suicidal ideation.  _

_ In winter here, people develop what is called the “Antarctic stare.” It is a kind of indifference, a flattening of affect in which one became absent-minded, feeling as if one were drifting through the days. I did it once, and I swore I would not do it again. I told Armitage about it once, told him how much it had scared me. He has done this because he knows how much I fear it. He wants me to suffer.  _

_ But I don’t think he intended for me to go insane or die. I don’t want to believe that Armitage meant to strand me here alone. I don’t want to imagine I once loved a man who would want to cause me such terrible harm. There were supposed to have been sixteen other scientists engaged in research here this winter. I want to imagine that he meant me to be stranded here with them, uncomfortable but safe, and that he thought he would simply deal with the fallout after I returned. He has always been a powerful man. I imagine he believed he would get away with it, that I would have no recourse.  _

_ But there are no other people here now. They found a crack in the carbon module and at the last moment they pulled the other researchers. It still didn’t affect my assignment, didn’t trigger my retrieval. And now I am here alone.  _

_ Isolation will cause changes to my brain structure that are potentially permanent, damaging, changing my chemical signaling. It will begin by affecting my ability to make decisions and then impair my learning and memory. I will be subject to hallucinations and, given the length of my isolation, I will most likely succumb to permanent psychosis.  _

_ Regardless of what Armitage thinks, the research that I did was my research. I did not steal from his ideas. I was researching nematodes long before I met him. I tried to show him my earlier notes. I sent him copies of my unpublished write ups, but he wouldn’t listen, wouldn’t look at them. I was so hurt he would imagine I would do that. But evidently he was more hurt, because he has murdered me, whether he intended to or not.  _

_ And even if Armitage learned that his trick has left me stranded here alone, there would be nothing he could do about it. During winter, nobody can get to the research station. Nobody can get out. There is no communication with the outside. I am truly alone at the bottom of the world, in the coldest, darkest, most hostile climate on Earth. God help me.  _

#

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 8th, 2038 

Dr. Rey Niima sat in a chair in the observation module, looking at the feed for cameras that were pointed at the landscape all around the research station. She watched the feeds. Each screen showed an area of the deepest blackness lit by a single bright floodlight that illuminated white ground in an exact circle. 

That was it. Six cameras and six viewpoints, all the same. Black night. White ground under white light. Her mind shied away from it but her eyes kept watching. In case something changed, evidently, and if that wasn’t already insane, she didn’t know what was. 

Halley VI Research Station was made of connected modules on mechanical skis that allowed it to stay above the ice. The buildings, shaped like the wing of an airplane to reduce sheer forces, were designed to withstand temperatures down to -56 degrees. Fifty-two people conducted research here in the summer on a moving ice shelf one hundred and fifty feet thick. The interior of the research station was enhanced with bright, bold colors selected to combat the depression and sense of isolation. 

And during winter, the sun didn’t rise above the horizon. It was always dark. 

Every day she would fight it, and every day Rey would come here. It had gotten to the point where even delaying her entrance into the module was a struggle. She knew compulsive behavior was a symptom of the emotional and mental disorder of the isolated mind. She knew there was nothing to see in the cameras, knew it was bad for her to come here and stare into them. 

She had tried distracting herself, exhausting herself on the weight machines, doing laps in the swimming pool, watching films from the library, anything not to come to this room. 

But every day, she would find herself in front of the door to the observation module. She would fight not to open it, and then she would be sitting in the chair in front of the screens, looking at the feeds for the cameras that were pointed at the landscape all around the research station. Each screen showed an area of the deepest blackness lit by a single bright floodlight that illuminated white ground in an exact circle. 

That was it. Six cameras and six viewpoints, all the same. 

It was her sixteenth day in isolation here, and Rey did believe she was going mad, at least some, the beginnings of it, yes, she thought maybe that was happening. How would she know? But she knew she wasn’t right. 

She had woken this morning, or what she had arranged for her body to imagine was morning, keeping to her schedule, although her sleep was so interrupted that she spent hours awake, couldn’t get to sleep. Her eyes were sunken and darting. She would eat, the tray nutritionally balanced. Shower. Exercise. In the central module, there was a dining room and recreational spaces for arts and crafts, a pool table. A swimming pool, climbing walls, a gym and a sauna, a music room. 

_ Climbing walls _ . That was good. She was definitely going to be climbing the walls, it was good they’d left that as an option for her. Rey laughed, a wrong sound in all the quiet, cringing a little, startling herself, the first time she’d heard a voice in too long. 

She hadn’t meant to do that. She sounded mad as a hatter, nuttier than a fruitcake, crazy like a loon. Soon she’d be cackling away and talking to herself. They’d find her roaming the modules spouting off about crazy shit, aliens and chem trails. 

She kept music on sometimes to try to cut into the thick of the quiet that was like a feather pillow in her mind slowly muffling all her thinking, but it was somehow more lonely to know nobody else was hearing it. Her fear tore at her, undermining her ability to equalize, to find some way to get through this. She was nervous all the time, jumpy. She had tried to write her findings for a while, articles on her research, but she couldn’t concentrate, a sign she was entering into a period of cognitive decline. 

Or worse. 

Sometimes lately she was convinced she wasn’t alone. Just a growing sense of someone else and she didn’t know what to do with that. Eight nights ago, she had been lying in her bed and she had heard a sound that had started her heart pounding. It was not a sound she’d ever heard here, not since there’d been other people here with her. She hadn’t heard it since, but she couldn’t forget it. 

It hadn’t been the hush  _ pocks  _ of the ventilation system, or the regular station self-maintenance noises, the processors, refrigeration. It was a different sound. A sound like movement. Movement in the other modules, something in here with her, maybe several somethings. Animals. Worse than animals, and Rey, who was a scientist who didn’t believe in monsters, lay beneath her covers in the heated room in the middle of nothing and shook and cried, and nobody in the whole world knew it except a man who hated her and had left her here to die alone. 

# 

MONDAY, DECEMBER 6, 2038 

Dr. Rey Niima sat in a chair in the observation module, looking at the feed for cameras that were pointed at the environment all around the research station. Each screen showed an area of the deepest blackness lit by a single bright floodlight that illuminated white ground in an exact circle. That was it. Six cameras and six viewpoints, all the same. Black night. White ground under white light. 

Except for one. 

Rey stared into the fourth camera feed as she had for the last twenty-four minutes, her expression wary, and behind that was a bottomless well of fear. She was in her forty-fourth day of isolation and she knew she was unstable, knew she sometimes hallucinated. She knew her mind was playing tricks on her. 

Something had changed, all right. Finally, something had changed, and that wasn’t necessarily a good thing, because the odds of that happening were so low that it pretty much was a given she was hallucinating right now. 

She was looking at a box. It was a simple white box, whiter even than the snow, no markings, an almost perfect geometric three-dimensional shape. It was sitting exactly in the center of the camera’s field of vision. It had a single arcing handle. She had no idea how big it was, exactly. She watched the feed. 

# 

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 16, 2038 

Dr. Rey Niima sat in a chair in the observation module, looking at the feed for cameras that were pointed at the tundra all around the research station. Each screen showed an area of the deepest blackness lit by a single bright floodlight that illuminated white ground in an exact circle. That was it. Six cameras and six viewpoints, all the same. Black night. White ground under white light. 

Except for one. 

It was the tenth day since the box had arrived. It hadn’t moved. It was always here when she came into the room, when she sat down. Sometimes she watched it for hours. Sometimes she would lose time watching it, look at the display and realize. At those times, there was a sense that she’d been busy. But she was here, on the station, by herself. 

And Rey had a problem, a right-here-and-right-now problem. 

She wanted to go out there. She wanted to go and see if the box was real. She wanted to know what was in it. And she knew, knew with all of her not insubstantial intellect, that it was not real. She knew it was a hallucination. 

But going out there and seeing for herself had become an itch of a compulsion that was as difficult to ignore as the fear she felt going out there alone. 

Every day she fought it. On the fourth day, she had actually gotten dressed, at least the first couple of layers. It had frightened her so much to have done that without really making a decision that she had successfully fought off the compulsion for the next six days. But she was losing again now. 

She wanted to get dressed and go out there. Nothing would protect her in such a harsh environment, not more than an hour. 

( _ It wouldn’t take that long _ ) 

She couldn’t trust her own judgment, couldn’t trust her senses, couldn’t trust her own mind. The box wasn’t real. She knew that was true. She would endanger herself going out there. She was afraid it was an impulse to suicide. And what would happen when she got there and it wasn’t real, when it wasn’t there? Would she flip out? What if she came back and looked at the camera and it was there again? 

( _ Do you have a choice _ ?) 

Yes, she had a choice. She’s survived here now for fifty-four days. Even if she went completely crazy, if she kept it together a little longer she could still maybe survive to the point where they would rescue her. 

( _ But you looked up the date, didn’t you _ ?) 

Rey closed her eyes and nodded, cringing. She had, yes, she had. March 17th. That’s when they would return. Months from now. A long season. She would never make it. 

She really wouldn’t make it if she went outside. She would die out there. 

( _ What if it’s real _ ?) 

“It’s not  _ real _ !” Rey cried, her voice loud in the room, and then she cried out in fear directly after, having startled herself, her hand clapping over her own mouth, looking around as if she were afraid someone might have heard her. 

That way lay madness. She didn’t talk to herself, wouldn’t allow it, sometimes sat still for hours with her hand over her mouth to prevent it, rocking. She had become convinced, in an elaborate fear fantasy, that talking to herself would cause her psyche to split into two or maybe even three or four personalities. The thought terrified her.  _ It wasn’t real, it wasn’t, it wasn’t _ . 

( _ You don’t know that. You won’t know that until you go and see _ ). 

Rey opened her eyes. Her shoulders slumped. She already heard another voice. It didn’t matter if it was aloud or not. She was doing it anyway. 

“I can’t go and see,” she said to herself miserably, giving in to it, beginning to cry. She wept all the time now, and it was a relief to talk. It frightened her how much she was suddenly able to focus once she began to talk. She  _ needed  _ to talk. She couldn’t organize her thoughts anymore. “I can’t trust myself.” 

( _ Then trust me _ ). 

Rey got up. She felt curiously free now that she had allowed herself to talk. She chattered as she went to her quarters, posing questions and answering them, commenting on her surroundings, feeling almost normal for the first time, so unfamiliar a feeling that she was afraid to stop what she was doing in case it passed. It was such a profound relief. 

She took off her clothing, standing. She looked in the mirror. Armitage had seen something in her, approached her at a conference, flirting. She had been flattered, had wanted his ( _ hands on you _ ) attention, had been instantly infatuated. 

Her eyes were on her body ( _ touch you _ ), running her hands over her breasts, her nipples tightening, jutting, very sensitive ( _ pleasure you _ ), down her belly. She blinked, shaking her head, turning away. 

She tried different arguments, her voice rising and falling, trying to persuade. She told herself all she needed to do was hold it together and she might make it out of this alive and maybe they could piece her mind together again, but the truth was she didn’t believe that and never had. 

She talked and just enjoyed the sound of it, the sense of putting words together as she pulled on the wool shirt and bottoms, insulated, and thin wool socks. She argued both sides as she put the insulated vest over her core, the thin wool gloves, trousers and another pair of thicker socks. 

She reminded herself that the box was imaginary and asked herself what she was going to do with it even if it did appear real to her senses as she put on the balaclava, the wool hat over that, the parka, the waterproof outer mittens, ski pants and rubber boots. Taking up her yellow goggles, she fit them over her eyes. She unearthed her hand briefly and put on the chapstick and slipping it back into her pocket, awkward, refitting the mitten over the gloves. 

She found herself in the hatch, facing the exit. It was her last chance. She had a brief moment where she fought it frantically, fought it like she would if she were approaching the edge of a cliff and about to jump, her mind reaching a shivering point of resistance. 

In the next moment, she decided and it was gone. Her fingers were steady as they inputting numbers without her thinking about them and her hand shot out, hitting the large black button. A red light above her head swirled, the lights going out and coming on again, and the huge doors in front of her began to rise, a buzzer sounding. 

It rose to reveal a black landscape so inky that it appeared solid with darkness. She was looking into a vacuum of nothing, and beyond the black, a long way beyond the black she would have to walk through to meet it, a single pool of light showed in a perfect circle over white snow. The first floodlight and camera. There were six of them. 

She walked down the ramp toward it, wind blasting over her. Cold and dark. There was no point in a flashlight. It was flat, what she was moving to ahead, clearly visible. She fought through to it. 

Lethal cold. Her body reacted, the blood vessels in her extremities constricting. She had the sudden urge to pee, a response to fluids concentrating in her core. She began to shiver, involuntary muscle contractions. 

She didn’t have much time out here. It only took a three to four degree drop in temperature for a person to go into hypothermia. If she stayed out here too long, her thought processes would become even more compromised than they already were. She could quickly become confused, lost out here, just wander off and not even know it. 

( _ Just keep going _ ). 

She walked toward the light. When she got there, she stood in the small circle of it and imagined that somewhere inside, in the observation module, she was on the screen, standing there. For a moment she got confused and thought that she was in two places. That she was actually sitting in the observation module, staring blankly into the screens, and with that thought she looked toward the second light. It was so far. 

She reached it, fighting the wind, and looked to the next one. She set off for it, going a long, frightening ways from the exit. She looked back. She could see the second floodlight she’d just left, the light broken by stuff in the wind that crossed her field of vision, a blurring of the ground as it swept across it. She could see the first light past that, a small pinpoint, but she couldn’t see the station and panic slammed through her. 

She stopped, breathing fast. Hyperventilating,  _ Jesus _ , she was going to hyperventilate, she could not panic out here. She’d been trained better than this. She concentrated, closing her eyes, breathing more slowly. She opened her eyes, the third floodlight ahead. She made her way to it. 

She avoided looking to the next one when she arrived, had avoided looking at it on her approach. Either answer was disastrous and she couldn’t tell which one she feared more or wanted more. If it wasn’t real, she was mad. If it was real, she was mad. 

If it wasn’t there, she’d go back, she promised herself. She’d go back and she’d find a way to lock the door to the exit, find a way to keep herself from going into the observation module. She would live, and when they got to her she would walk out of this forsaken place,  _ please _ , she wanted to go, to leave here now, she wanted to go very badly. She looked up and at the fourth floodlight. 

The box was there. She could see it. She began walking toward it, finally approaching it, entering the circle of the light. It was large, coming up to her chest. She kept her eyes on it like it would disappear. 

She approached and was standing in front of it, struggling to accept it, now deeply doubting herself, doubting her judgment all up and down. Somewhere in the station, the empty chair sat in front of the feed to the fourth camera, and it wasn’t just the box there. It was also her watching herself standing in front of the box. 

She was suddenly confused. Was she here or was she watching the feed? Both? She realized she was staring blankly. Her eyes shifted to the box. 

She walked forward, getting near it. It was uniform, without any markings, smooth-looking like plastic or polished stone. She touched it, the gloves she was wearing giving her no information except that it was there, a solid object. Real, if she wasn’t simply hallucinating. She touched the handle. 

The box moved. 

She stepped back quickly, her breath-vapor increasing. She looked at the third spotlight. She had to get back soon. It didn’t matter if it was real, did it? It was just a box. She looked at it all over. There was no way for her to tell where it might have come from. She touched it again. Nothing. She hesitated and then grasped the handle. 

The box rose, hovering. She froze. She released the handle and the box slowly settled into the snow. She watched. It settled deep, deep into the snow. It was heavy. She looked back at the third spotlight. She looked back at the handle. 

Rey put her hand on the handle. When the box rose, she took a step. It came with her effortlessly. She began to walk, going easily to the third spotlight, the box accompanying her. She went the distance between the third and the second, and then the second and the first and to her relief she could see the station now, could see the entrance, the bay open, waiting for her, snow drifting into it, piling a little. She started toward it and stopped. 

Was she really going to bring the box in there? Into the station itself? 

( _ Yes _ ). 

As she resumed her walk toward the bay, the box coming with her, she had the sense of something irrevocable.  _ Inside, it’s inside now _ , she thought, and that thought was hers, all hers, nobody else’s. 

She walked to the keypad and inputted the numbers. The door unlatched, falling open. She pulled it wide, bringing the box in. She brought it to the central module. She thought about it and brought it to the indoor pool. It was warm in here, the polished aquamarine tiles soothing, a large swath of it, the same color on the floor around the pool and up the walls, flashing with light off the water, refractions off its surface. 

She released the box and it settled slowly. She stood back. 

The moment that she did, a line appeared in the center of the box. At first it was so fine she wasn’t sure, but it quickly widened. It was absolutely straight and went all around, she saw, as she examined it. 

It was opening. She stepped back quickly, alarmed. One side fell away with a sound that could only be accounted for if you knew it was so heavy that it would have crushed anything under it immediately. It was a dull clang that didn’t echo, all of the reflections in the room jumping with the impact, Rey crying out. 

It was the surprise of its opening that made her cry out, but it was also what was inside, half of the box form the empty negative shape of it, the other half still filled. 

It was an egg. An egg the size of a person. It was milky and almost opaque, but she could see a form inside moving. It was alive, alive. She stumbled back, crying out. She barely noticed as she went down, tripping behind herself, crab walking back a little, her face frozen in a fear grimace. 

The egg began to rock as she watched, her eyes huge, unable to move. It rocked and rocked, the form inside helping like it wanted it, and then it finally hovered at the apex, its balance tipping, and crashed over off the lip of the box side, huge cracks appearing where it landed. Rey cried out again as it wobble rolled to the edge of the pool, gaining speed, cracks appearing everywhere on its surface. It crested the lip, falling over the side and immediately sank to the bottom, rolling to the lowest point on the floor of the pool and sitting there. 

Rey was panting, staring. Her hands were shaking as she pulled off her yellow glasses, her hat, the balaclava, her hair falling all around her face until she brushed it back. Her hands went to her parka, far too warm, pulling it off, her rubber boots. She was suddenly claustrophobic in all the cloth, tearing at it, making small noises. She wanted it off. She made herself stop at the long underwear, pulling off the socks, her skin crawling because she wanted to pull those off too and she didn’t know why. 

Her eyes returned to the egg. It was open, cracked open completely, shards floating. It had opened while she’d been pulling her clothing off. Her eyes darted and found it, a dark form under the water, large, not inside the egg anymore. It was a person at the bottom of the pool, arms around the knees, the forehead on them, like he—from its shape, she thought maybe a he—was still in the egg. She slowly stood up, leaving her scattered clothing and walking to the edge of the pool, peering at it. 

The form suddenly unbent itself and shot toward her. One moment it was in its peaceful ball and the next it was a fast moving streak coming straight at her. 

Rey shrieked, stumbling back, too afraid to turn around and run from it because she had to know what it was, what it looked like. Her back hit the far wall, the aquamarine tiles cold as the form reached the side and didn’t even pause. 

A man’s head emerged, long dark hair wet with water, a thin beard and mustache, strong and thick arms, his chest broad, his shoulders. 

Her eyes dipped lower as he pushed, one knee coming up, rising, his foot landing, pushing the rest of him out. He was tall. He pushed his hair back with one hand, blowing water, walking toward her. His face was distinct, long, intense eyes, a sensual mouth. He was beautiful. 

( _ You’re beautiful _ ). 

She could hear him but in her mind. She shook her head as he walked toward her, nude, her eyes going to his sex, engorged. Then he was looming over her so she had to look up. She’d always been short. His eyes were the deepest hazel, that color between brown and green, almost a gold. Her heart was pounding so hard she could feel it in her hands. 

He wanted something, his eyes staring into hers. He bent slowly and kissed her. It was sensual and so right, a wave of desire going through her. Yes, she wanted this, as his hands landed on her waist, deepening it, pushing the leggings down. She pushed them off her legs with her feet, stomping out of them as his hands went to the shirt. He pulled back and drew it off of her and she was naked. 

“Wait,” she said, everything going too fast, her hands going to his chest. 

( _ I can’t. I want you _ ). 

“No, I don’t—. No.” 

His hands found her breasts, cupping them. He touched her nipples and she cried out with the sensation, so much stronger than she’d ever felt, her hips jerking. His sex rubbed her belly, hard and silky, as he pinched them gently, getting rougher, tugging and pulling. 

She dimly heard herself making needy noises, helpless cries, the feelings overwhelming. Want didn’t describe it, wave after wave of lust going through her. He lifted her and she spread her legs, her knees coming up, his arm around her waist. He found her, big there as well, rubbing himself up and down her sex, hard. She was wet, she was so wet. She’d been wet since she’d stood in front of the mirror, slippery. 

He rocked into her, holding her eyes, opening her. She couldn’t move the pleasure was so keen, trapped as he thrust gently, then more, making a sound of pure pleasure himself as he finally bottomed out. 

( _ Good. So good _ ). 

He said it to her, in her mind, and she agreed, both of them helpless with it, caught up. One of his arms supported her, his other hand slipping between them, finding her clitoris with his thumb, rubbing there. 

The pleasure was almost too much, reaching for a peak. She didn’t hear herself. She didn’t even know if he was real, didn’t even know his name—. 

( _ Kylo. Come for me, sweet Rey _ ). 

She climaxed, crying out sharply, arching. Waves of pleasure went through her body, rigid, as he thrust into her, his breathing ragged, his eyes still holding hers and then he threw his head back, crying out, his eyes closing. 

( _ Yes. Mine, all mine, I claim you. Good, such pleasure _ ). 

His sex lifted in her, throbbing and warm, spilling as she came harder. It wasn’t going to stop. He cried out again, and then his head came down, burying in her throat as she finally relaxed. They were both panting hard, both still. She could feel his heart thundering against her. He drew back, his eyes seeking hers. 

She stared at him, still breathing fast. There was so much of him, all around her, his skin warm and solid and so real. He slowly drew out of her. Her legs slid down the wall until they were under her again, although he was still supporting her. She was staring at his face, wanting to say something. She hadn’t spoken to someone in so long. She burst into tears. 

“I’m crazy, aren’t I?” she asked him. 

He let her stand on her own, careful, his hands coming to cup her face, his own expression tender. 

( _ No, sweet Rey. You’ve been frightened and alone. I am real. I would never hurt you. There’s nothing to fear _ ). 

She was so undone that she hitched, looking away. This was so far past sanity, so far past any possible return. 

“Do you promise?” she said, her voice small. 

( _ I swear it. Look at me. Look at me, sweet Rey. I love you _ ). 

Her eyes went to his, searching. 

“Who are you?” 

( _ Kylo _ ). 

“Where are you from?” 

( _ Another place far, far away _ ). 

#

They lay in her bunk, nude, facing each other. Her hands were tucked under her cheek. His right arm was bent under him, supporting his head, the other hand tracing her side, his fingers trailing, gentle. 

“How do you know how to speak with me?” she said. 

( _ I’m not, really. I’m sending you ideas and your mind is taking those ideas and finding the nearest approximation and then choosing something more familiar. In places we are very different from each other, your mind supplies those things that fill in the gaps. I am having a similar experience, speaking with you. You seem to be speaking into my mind and I translate that into things that are meaningful to me, and familiar and make sense _ ). 

“And when we have sex?” 

( _ There is an experience we have that is similar in that it gives as much intense pleasure. It also can lead to reproduction of my genetic code, although, like you, not as a result of every encounter. The compulsion for my species is also complex, sometimes confusing, a source of great interest to us. My species also spends time thinking about it a great deal, seeking it. I experience that with you. It’s very pleasurable, keenly pleasurable, satisfying _ ). 

“Don’t you have someone from your own species to share it with?” 

( _ My species don’t do that with each other, Rey. We can’t).  _

“You don’t reproduce with each other? Who do you do reproduce with?”she said. 

( _ Others _ ). 

She thought about that. 

“Do I want to know what you really look like?” 

He shook his head, his expression peaceful. 

( _ You wouldn’t like my other form, sweet Rey. It would frighten you _ ). 

“How do you reproduce?” 

He looked away from her, his expression a little sad. Anxious. 

( _ You would call me a parasite _ ). 

She waited, trying to understand. She found herself asking it, not even thinking. “Are you inside of me right now, Kylo?” she whispered. “Are you in my body?” 

His eyes returned to hers, guarded. 

( _ Yes. I’ve been inside you since the night you heard noises. I tried coming to you in this form, but your mind was too fragile. You were too frightened. I waited until you slept and then I approached you and entered your body so I could know you and communicate with you _ .) 

Rey froze. 

“You’re the monster. You found me.”

( _ That’s how you thought of me. When I learned more about you, I thought the box was something your mind might be able to accept. I was afraid if you were alone for too much longer, you wouldn’t survive. You haven’t adapted well to solitude. You were in pain. Your mind had become fragile _ ). 

“What are you doing here?” 

( _ I am a little like you. A scientist. An explorer. I came here to learn about your species, but I wasn’t expecting one of you to be here, in this harsh environment. I felt your distress, your loneliness and fear. So I came. I seek those like you. We look for beings with whom we could reproduce).  _

“We,” she said warily. “There are more of you?” 

( _ Many, many more. Billions _ ). 

She looked away from him, her heart pounding. Kylo turned her chin toward himself gently, his hand stroking her hair back. 

( _ What do you fear, sweet Rey? _ ) 

“I am wondering how much of you is made up of ideas from me,” she said. “Just how much you’re in my mind.” 

( _ Does it matter so much _ ?) 

She stared at him, her eyes roaming his face, deciding. 

“Not to me,” she said. “But I get the feeling once your kind starts reproducing with us, we’re not going to do a lot of reproducing with each other, and that kind of seems like conquering another species.” 

Kylo nodded, looking away. 

( _ I know. I can’t change what I am, Rey. It’s how I was born. You just said it doesn’t matter to you. It won’t matter to them either. Does it occur to you that you might just like us better than your own kind? This male of your species, Armitage. Look what he did to you. What I feel for you is real to me and so important that when I say the idea into your mind, you hear the word love. Is it so bad, Rey, to reproduce with me, to find pleasure with me, to spend your time in my presence? Do you miss him so much? _ ) 

There was terrible pain in Kylo’s voice. She had hurt him. Her hand shot out, touching his lips. He closed his eyes. 

“I don’t miss him at all,” Rey said. 

( _ And you want to be with me? _ ) 

He opened his eyes and looked at her, that color but so much depth. 

“Yes.” 

He reached and caressing her cheek. 

( _ Then why is it wrong? We’re compatible. Why do you have to have physical pleasure with these males and only them? Your genetics will still be passed on, mingled with mine. Why should you only be theirs? Why do they deserve to love you and not me? _ )

She hesitated. 

“What will the child be like?” 

He grinned at the implied consent he heard in her voice, his eyes lighting with pleasure. 

( _ Like you and like me, and only when you’re ready, Rey. When you want it, I will make it happen. I’ve told you. I would never hurt you. It would hurt me to hurt you _ ). 

“Will the others come?” 

( _ Yes. They are already here. I told them as soon as I found you _ ). 

“And you’ll stay with me?” 

( _ For all your life, sweet Rey _ ). 

For a moment, his eyes clouded with grief. She didn’t ask why he didn’t include himself. She didn’t want to know. 

“Then I agree,” Rey said. 

He grinned at her, the grief disappearing, joy replacing it. He leaned forward to kiss her. She lost herself in it a little. 

( _ Thank you, sweet Rey. Are you ready to leave this place with me? We can go anywhere in your world that you want. I’ll take you).  _

“Yes.” 

# 

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 17, 2039 

The inspector opened the small door, walking into the module. 

“Where is she?” Armitage Hux demanded, standing up. “I have to speak with her.” 

“She is not here,” the inspector said, his accent thick. 

“What?” 

“The consulate has allowed you to accompany us to the site because you are a powerful man, Mr. Hux,” the inspector said. “Now I have the proof I need, and I will give it to the authorities in your country so they can charge you with causing Dr. Rey Niima’s death.” 

“I never meant to—.” Armitage began, looking stunned. “I thought she had stolen my research. I don’t understand. She’s dead?” 

“From what I’ve learned about the effects of isolation, especially here, it is difficult for me to believe that this really surprises you. I believe a jury would find it equally unlikely.”

Armitage Hux paled. He sat slowly, staring blindly in front of himself. He didn’t answer. Inspector Dameron studied him. 

“I’m curious. Did she do that?” Inspector Dameron said. “Did she steal your research? She must suffered here in ways I cannot imagine. Was it worth it, your revenge, to do something so terrible to a woman with whom you were once intimate?” 

Armitage stared at the inspector blankly, his eyes stark in his face, dark circles under his eyes. He looked around himself as if for options. 

“No,” he said faintly. “She didn’t steal anything. I was so sure she had. She sent me her earlier articles, they weren’t published, I didn’t listen to her. I didn’t believe her, it was such a coincidence. When I learned she was alone here, I looked at them—.” 

A tech came in, holding a tablet. 

“We have the camera records,” he said, his face solemn. 

“Put it up,” the inspector said. The tech typed and they watched her on camera, the woman staring into screens in the observation room. “Is that her, Mr. Hux?” 

“That’s Rey,” Armitage said, his voice despairing. “What is she doing?” 

“Hallucinating, maybe,” the tech said, shaking his head, all of them watching her stare into the screens, her eyes blank. 

Minutes passed. She blinked periodically, but that was the only sign she was alive, a statue of a woman. The tech fast-forwarded the feed. Hours of it. The feed cut out. 

“Where did she go?” Armitage demanded, anxious as if it was in real time. 

The tech pushed buttons. 

“That’s all we have. After that point, she disabled the interior cameras in the station. The computer records indicate she exited the station on December 18th at 2:03 p.m. and didn’t come back. She could not have survived outside of the station for more than an hour. We have to assume that she was delusional at that point. I am afraid we will probably never recover her body. We have her personal log. There is only one entry. 

The tech held out the tablet. Inspector Dameron took it, reading. He handed it to Armitage Hux, whose eyes scanned, holding it up in one hand. His other hand slowly came and covered his mouth. 

_ I am so afraid. I have been abandoned here in this wasteland. _ ...” 


End file.
